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Chicago Metropolitan Jazz Orchestra: Kive and Screamin'
by Dave Nathan
Recorded at two separate performances in 1997 at FitzGerald's Night Club and originally released in March of 1998, the Chicago Lakeside Jazz label has now reissued the two concerts by the Chicago Metropolitan Jazz Orchestra under the leadership of Lenny King. Guesting is former Stan Kenton trumpet player Dennis Noday whose high atmosphere pyrotechnics are featured on “Blue", “Maria" and “MacArthur Park". Noday played that screeching high register trumpet part with Kenton like Ray Wetzel and Maynard Ferguson did in ...
Continue ReadingChicago Metropolitan Jazz Orch.: Labor of Love
by Dave Nathan
CMJO Leader Lenny King makes no bones about it. He looks to Stan Kenton and his great arrangers for his musical inspiration. The group plays in the style of the Kenton groups, not in imitation, but more in admiration. This album features arrangements by Bill Holman, Gene Roland, Marty Paich and Lennie Niehaus. It also has a few good orchestrations by members of the band, like Kirk Garrison. Whatever they are performing, the outfit specializes in the same tight, disciplined ...
Continue ReadingThe Chicago Metropolitan Jazz Orchestra: Labor of Love
by Jack Bowers
The Chicago Metropolitan Jazz Orchestra’s first recording ( Live and Screamin’, a concert date from October–November ’97) was so impressive the thought here was that only a “labor of love” could possibly equal or surpass it. Well, the millennium has arrived, and with it the CMJO’s Labor of Love, and if the band’s second excursion can’t eclipse the flash and excitement of Screamin’, it comes close often enough to dissuade any reproval. As usual, the CMJO’s repertoire is conspicuously inspired ...
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